While I don't entirely disagree with you, this highlights a major issue. To me, the 6 ranks fo AD all have distinct differences and give a very different feel to the different troops. I play Ariadna, and I would kill for an AD troop besides Mirage 5. I also balance the threat of Van Zant with the price discount of other Parachutists. I bring this up, not to debate the specifics of AD, but to point out that one person's irrelevant detail is another person's fundamental difference. There is likely room within the CC skills and weapons for some streamlining, but the fact that so many rules/weapons are used across factions makes it a bit different. I've said before, in many games, the Core Rules are tiny and the faction-specific rules are gargantuan. In Infinity, the Core Rules are deep and the faction rules are minuscule. This is why I don't envy CB moving into N4. I think they will make an awesome game and I've had a blast playing N3. I have never encountered a situation my opponent and I couldn't figure out and the community is the best out of any game. If CB keeps up what they've been doing, I think it will be outstanding.
hmm...maybe try Deadzone (starter for two players is not expensive and has lots options for list building.)? Malifaux rulewise is very strong, in my opinion that is the best skirmish if you're worried about how careful rules are being designed and "bugs fixed" + it is very deep and tactical...but for my taste it is quite "abstract" (you mainly play with cards and abilities, instead of units there could be just some markers:() Overall I think you comment is very important (I hope CB has read it), as you story is not unique - I've done lots of demos, and Infinity in its core is a hardcore game, definitely not for everyone. It either should be positioned better or became much more easier
On the other hand do we really need rules that are used by just few profiles in the entire game? Like how many units have access to AD: Tactical Jump or AD: Superior Combat Jump (is there any unit apart from Hellcats that can use this level at all), or MA5 and so on? Having extra little rules for everything is nice but when you add every extra rule, that's just too much. Yesterday I had a game with a local warcor and a veteran player. At some point he mentioned a rule that I was not aware of. Later on I tried to verify that but I was not able to find that particular ruling. When I mentioned it to the warcor, he said it was probably something from N2 he got mixed up. My point is that having a complex and tactical game is nice and I like that aspect of infinity but even when your veteran players have problems with remembering all game mechanics, I'd say something is wrong with the game.
Do not get me wrong, I don't mean I don't understand every AD rank difference, I play Haqq and Yu Jing so I have some AD troops, I use them often and enjoy their differences. My point is, if there were 3 or 4 ranks of AD and we had never known the 6 ranks of AD, probably we would enjoy it the same and the rules would be lighter. My point is, when you design a game you have to have some goals in mind, a clear image of what your game has to be, and some limits, complexity between them. For example, in Starcraft 2 there are 3 armies, each of one has between 17 and 20 units, each unit has between 0 and 4 spells/habilities. It is sick the deepness they got with that, and they got pretty clear how many units they wanted for each army, how many units should cover every specific purpose (so they don't overlapbefore they launched the game, so when they launched the expansions there were room for the new units. In the same way, CB should have clear how complex Infinity has to be, how many special rules , weapons, types of ammo, markers, etc... there should be. And that numbers can't be unlimited. I got nuts when, one year ago, we were discusing the same points, an important part of the community agreed Infinity is at least very complex already and they still released new units, rules and equipment, apparently endlessly. My point is if C1 is a bridge to N4 (as the Operations tried to be a bridge to N3), they need to be aware that C1 won't be enough, that bridge will be too long, they also need to put N4 closer than N3. Or C1 has to be an entire game itself.
Haven't we already have a correction on that? C1 is meant to be the newbie rules from Operation boxes, without being gated behind buying a two-player box. It's not a bridge between the two, it literally is the newbie rules.
As Mahtamori says, CodeOne is a game in it's own right. Obviously there will be players who start with CodeOne and move on to N4, but there will also be players who start with CodeOne and simply carry on with CodeOne.
The problem is not only the complexity of the game but also how the rules are written. I do hope CodeOne won't become the excuse to not fix N3 issues.
If code one just dropped the unconscious state (including dogged, shasvastii and NWI) that'd simplify the game enormously. So many equipment pieces, skills, command token rules and generally niche things rely on unconscious its unreal and surprise surprise management of the unconscious state is a huge (I suspect unintendedly huge) part of high level play: C1 would be a very different game without it.
Very awful pic. There's 2 important differences between N3/N4 and Code One: - Time: If I can play with my miniatures on a game in 45 minutes or an hour probably play more often. On Infinity you waste a lot of time putting te tables, the scenografy, and deployement. Put a small terrain is very fast (Kill Team is a good example). Same a Tournament, a Infinity Tournament lasts a whole day. If I can play a tournament only in one morning I will probably be encouraged to play more. - Dimension: On my house there's no room to store 120x120 cm (48x48"), but on any table I can put a Corvus Scenary Pack. I like if it will be casual game friendly. Prefer to play Code One to Infinity is not only a question of difficulty. And of course calling the players of this future game stupid seems like a huge lack of education.
So this means N4 will still require an engineering degree equivalent studying process to be able to play properly? Well, I suppose people still won't play around here but I'm sure they'd love being called stupid because they don't want to waste time with an awfully redacted rulebook with a thousand FAQs and a bazillion skills and equipment differing minimally from one another.
hmmm, as i read through this discussion, some questions came up: whats the reason do you like the game? why do you play such a complex game? whats the soul of this game? because the critics ive seen going directly through the complexity and soul of this game. in my opinion the soul of this game is the amount of rules, the variations and with all of them it gives tactical depth. is n3 already adult if u see n2 and n3 as states of growing-up - no. it feels more like a twenty year old in his storm and stress phase, try everything but already complex. and u know as an adult were no lesser complex.... so i think n4 will not be lesser complex, more adult but also masses of variation, but thats okay.. thats y im playing the game. but now the bridge through code one and back to topic: i think code one will also have a complexity. from army building side it can be the vanilla of vanillas and less variation of troops and less specified troops. and with less specified troops and more vanillaness u have less rules to learn and use and a faster game. and then its easy to go to complexer troops and filling the gap to n4. hopefully they dont streamline the fluff of the different fractions. as read on a post above its totally correct having two competing systems u split the community.
Which was kind of my point. It is nice to see you agree. I don't know if you noticed but usually the guy in this meme is supposed to be a douche. @the-cultist I'm still not arguing for dumbing down the game. I just want a ruleset that makes actual sense. The difference between studying engineering and studying infinity is that after studying engineering it makes sense. After studying Infinity you find only unresolved issues that are not covered by the ruleset. I want the rulebook streamlined not the complexity of the game.
N2 only had 4 levels of AD: Parachutist, Airborne Infiltration, Combat Jump, and Tactical Jump. AD1, AD2, AD4, and ADX in N3 terms. TacJump was the super-elite Airborne Officer skill, Van Zant and Ko Dali were the only models that had it. Then Ko Dali got Kerrigan'd by the EI. The Yuan-Yuans had some special rule that inflicted a -3 penalty on their AD rolls, which got turned into Inferior Combat Jump in N3. I don't remember if Hellcats had a special rule that gave a bonus to their AD rolls, which got turned into Superior Combat Jump in N3.
They didn't. Also, Superior CJ only makes that when they disperse, go to their deploy zone instead to directly the back (I remember seeing somewere that skill used some kind of bonus, but I cannot recall were I saw it, maybe a video prevous to N3?). The bonus to AD were with EVO repeater (now EVO hacker device).
My thoughts on the big attraction of infinity: 1. The order system - having the freedom of choice who and when to activate. 2. AROs give a unique feel to the game. 3. Skills - playing with camouflage, airborne deployment, holoprojectors, impersonation and transforming motorbikes is both fun and tactically interesting. What doesn't do anything for me is the bloat mentioned earlier. Multiple weapons that are so similar that players are challenged to look at charts or memorise alot of information. Huge amounts of martial arts skills that are similar and unintuitive to learn. Same with hacking, ammo types and other skills like AD that have multiple levels. Infinity's complexity is rooted both in the vast amount of tactical choices and the huge amount of rules and exceptions. It is the tactical choices that are interesting to me, not the variety of options noted above which only serves as a barrier to gameplay flow.
I must say I dislike the idea of code one as an alternate rule set. Basic rule sets are really hard to do correctly. Usually they just make players confused more when the rules they know well suddenly change. Hopefully its just limits the range of weapons and abilities instead of actually changing any rules. I also worry that it will split the community. Its not the biggest community, but suddenly you can have a split between two games. Please don't use proxies on new players. Its hard enough to learn the game without things actually being other things.
I disagree with this : someone who will usually play "complete" Infinity, will learn easily Code One if needed. I don't think there will be 2 communities because it still will be the same universe, same minis, same mechanichs... well same game ! Keep in mind that Code one is ALREADY here, in the "Operation" boxes. Code one is simply the opportunity for who wants it to play at this stage of the game with all armies and more pofiles. (sry for my poor english!)
Simply put, you might believe this is true--but the reality is there are some people who think any "dumbing down" of game systems compromises them unacceptably. There absolutely will end up being 2 communities.
I think the two communities will have a lot of cross over. But, some people will not feel the need to ever step up to 'full' infinity. They may just prefer lighter games. Others will refuse to play anything but the full game. People will end up having a natural preference for one game or another.
